Abstract: Taxa of the Photinia villosa complex, including P. villosa, its var. sinica, and P. parvifolia, are taxonomically perplexing. By means of conventional taxonomic methods, it is difficult to discriminate them from one another. Basing upon herbarium materials of about 100 sheets of specimens collected from seven provinces in China, a quantitative analysis of the correlations between certain key characters was then used to reexamine the validity of the above taxa. Results from both pictorialized scatter diagram and histogram have indicated that the complex could be divided into the following parts: (1) I(V)—characterized by many (7-32)-flowered corymbs and prominent pubescence at least when young, agreed with typical Photinia villosa; (2) II(S)—with less (2-12)-flowered corymbs (sometimes with umbels on the same herbarium sheet) and leaves usually pubescent along the midrib on the lower side, agreed well with P. villosa var. sinica; (3)III(P)—with few (1-9)-flowered umbels and plant glabrous throughout, agreed with P. parvifolia, but apparently overlaped with the lower portion of II(S); (4) IV(T)—characterized by umbels with still fewer [1-2(-5)] flowers, especially long, slenderer and pendulous pedicels and plant totally glabrous, was undoubtedly a new form. Both diagrams also showed that these four parts are so closely related to one another that they are by no means strictly separable. Thus it is better to treat them all as varieties of the said complex. A proper taxonomic treatment should include the reduction of Photinia parvifolia to a varietal rank of P. villosa as well as an addition of the newly discovered variety P. villosa var. tenuipes as presentedin this paper.